Roger spoke a little sternly, and glad of an excuse to turn his attention from herself to some one else, Hester replied,—
“It was in the same box with t’other paper, and I s’pose she’s got it who snooped till she found the will.”
She glanced meaningly at Mrs. Walter Scott, who deigned her no reply, but who began to feel uneasy with regard to the letter of which she had not before heard, and whose contents she did not know.
Neither Roger nor Frank wished to mix Magdalen up with the matter, if possible to avoid it, and no mention was made of her then, and Hester was suffered to believe it was Mrs. Walter Scott who had found the will.
“You read the letter, Hester. Tell me what was in it,” Roger said.
And then Hester’s face flushed, and her eyes flashed fire, as she replied,—
“There was in it that which had never or’ to be writ. He giv the reason why he made this will. He was driv to it by somebody who pisoned his mind with the biggest, most impossible slander agin the sweetest, innocentest woman that ever drawed the breath.”
Roger was listening eagerly now, with a fiery gleam in his blue eyes, and his nostrils quivering with indignation.
Mrs. Walter Scott was listening, too, her face very pale, except where a bright spot of red burned on her cheeks, and her lips slightly apart, showing her white teeth.
Frank was listening also, and gradually coming to an understanding of what had been so mysterious before.